Les Craig

About Les Craig

Les proudly serves as a General Partner at the Rocky Mountain Region\'s most driven seed stage investment firm, where he has played a leading role in investments across Funds II, and IV since joining the firm in 2017. At NFC, Les focuses on partnering with entrepreneurs to build impactful cyber security and defense technology companies in the Intermountain West.Before his venture capital career, Les served as Executive Director of the Montana State University Innovation Campus, where he established a major public-private partnership to develop a 42-acre research park in Bozeman, MT, aimed at technology and research commercialization. He was recruited to Montana State University as Director of the Blackstone LaunchPad, an entrepreneurship program funded by the Blackstone Charitable Foundation, where he mentored students, alumni, and faculty and helped launch 406 Labs, Montana’s first accelerator program.Earlier in his career, and before it was \"hot\", Les co-founded The Twenty, a data science services firm connecting senior mathematicians and computer scientists to clients ranging from startups to government agencies. He also co-founded RedOwl Analytics, a software company specializing in insider threat detection and risk mitigation, which was acquired by Forcepoint (Raytheon) in 2017.Les’s career began in national security: working both directly for the federal government and also as a contractor at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. He also served on multiple special operations task forces and as an aide-de-camp at the Joint Special Operations Command.Throughout his career, Les has demonstrated a strong commitment to technology commercialization, entrepreneurship, and building high-impact teams across both public and private sectors.

Experience

1. General Partner

   Next Frontier Capital

   Dec 2017 — Present · Bozeman, MT, US

   Our focus is to partner with mission-driven, talented entrepreneurs in the Intermountain West to build technology companies of impact, utility, and value.

Education

• United States Military Academy at West Point

  BS, Applied Mathematics/ Computer Science

  1999 — 2003

Skills

• Analysis
• Organizational Leadership
• Command
• Project Planning
• Analytics
• Intelligence
• Dod
• Governance
• Big Data
• Operations Management
• Program Management
• Army
• Security Clearance
• Project Management
• Predictive Analytics
• Defense
• Training
• Cross-Functional Team Leadership
• Information Assurance
• Integration
• Strategic Planning
• Systems Engineering
• Consulting
• Leadership
• Process Improvement
• Management
• Etl
• Team Leadership
• Military Operations
• Business Strategy
• Intelligence Analysis
• Military
• Business Development
• National Security
• Start-Ups
• Research
• Six Sigma
• Team Building
• Software Engineering
• Government